Midterm Flashcards
Hemodynamics (what it literally means)
Blood Movement.
The movement of blood.
What does the activity of blood in hemodynamics tell us? (an underlying assumption)
Where energy is needed in the brain, and therefore which brain areas are active.
Neuromodulation
Physically doing something to the brain and observing changes.
What’s the difference between cognition and behaviorism? Define cognition.
Cognition: internal mental processes that mediate stimulus-response relationships
Behaviorism: overt responses to stimulus
Behaviorism is observable, cognition is internal.
3 types of data in Cognition research
1) behavioral
2) psychophysiological
3) neuroimaging data
3 common ways behavioral data is measured in Cognition
1) response time
2) accuracy
3) choice
Types of psychophysiological data
1) Skin Conductance Response (SCR)
- mental process affects our skin electricity conductivity
2) Cardiovascular Activity, Electrocardiogram (EKG)
- heart information
3) Pupil Diameter (pulpilometry)
- eg. risk taking
4) Reflexive Movements
- eye blink, saccades, etc.
Which type of data uses autonomic nervous system?
psychophysiological
unconscious
Saccades. Type of what?
Rapid eye movements; a type of reflexive movement
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation does a “virtual ____”
lesion
What does ‘ethical’ refer to when considering which method too use?
Wasting participants time is unethical.
Directionality of brain: Front/Back
(both humans and animals)
Anterior/Posterior (before/after)
Rostral/Caudal (beak/tail)
What does medial/lateral mean?
Towards or away from the midline
Directionality of brain: Above/Below
(both humans and animals)
Superior/Inferior (above/below)
Dorsal/Ventral (back/belly)
3 planes
Horizontal, “horizon” (top/down)
Sagittal, “arrow” (side)
Coronal, “crown” (front/back)
Grey vs. White matter
Grey:
where the cells are and where they communicate
White:
the networks or highways that connect grey matter
2 parts of the folded structure of the brain.
What’s the purpose of these structures?
Sulci: the grooves or valleys
Gyri: the ridges or folds or peaks
Purpose: increase surface area of the brain to have more grey matter space
3 Main Sulci
(and what they separate)
Landmarks to divide the brain into regions
Longitudinal Sulcus:
- anterior-posterior cut in the medial part of brain.
- separates left and right hemispheres
Central Sulcus:
- medial-lateral cut of the brain
- separates frontal and parietal lobes
Lateral Sulcus:
- at the side of the brain
- separates temporal and frontal/parietal
Which of the 3 main sulcus does NOT have its own gyrification?
Central sulcus
What brain structure connects the two hemispheres? What is it?
Corpus callosum
A bundle of white matter with myelinated axons to transmit signals
What structure is found in the lateral sulcus?
What is it and its function?
Insular cortex
A bundle of grey matter. Many functions.
Neuron Doctrine
The brain consists of neurons, which are INDIVIDUAL cells that DON’T touch
What is an action potential in a few words?
A change in electric potential; a firing of electric potential (??)
Why don’t neurons just keep firing?
Neurotransmitters tell the next neuron whether to fire or not. Continuous firing will lead to seizures.
Neural Representation
Everything that we sense and experience is represented in our nervous system. Our cells cannot do anything without our nerves.
Name the terminology based on this description:
Everything that we sense and experience is represented in our nervous system. Our cells cannot do anything without our nerves.
Neural Representation
Feature Detectors
The first neurons that activate in response to some sensory stimulus. Contains raw data; the lowest level of neural processing.
Represents the basic info.
Hierarchical Processing
Neural processing in steps to make sense of basic sensory information.
A low to high level process, getting more and more abstract by adding meaning.
3 Types of Neural Coding
What are these neurons in response to?
Specificity Coding: a stimulus is represented by a single neuron (1 neuron activates in a region)
Sparse Coding: a small group of neurons respond to a particular stimulus (only some in a region activate)
Population Coding: a large number of neurons contribute to representing a stimulus (all neurons in a region activate in response)
They are in response to feature detectors.
2 types of processing for higher-level processing.
Localized Processing: one region does the higher-level processing of a stimulus
Distributed Processing: multiple regions collaborate for the higher-level processing.
2 types of neural connectivity
Structural: physically connected (by white matter)
Functional: activity in one area activates another area; any 2 regions that activate together. functional relationship
When getting more familiar with a particular stimulus (eg. Bill), what happens to feature detectors and connections?
The feature detectors stay the same, but connectivity strengthens
How do researchers find structural or functional connectivity?
What methods for structural and what for functional?
Using precise measures of structural (eg. DTI) or functional (eg. EEG/fMRI/fNIRS) scans
3 ways to differentiate brain regions
Microanatomical
Macroanatomical
Connectivity
What are Macroanatomical features of the brain?
What specific?
Gyri and Sulci.
AAL-3 divides brain based on Gyri.
Desikan-Killiany divides brain based on Gyri
Destrieux dividues brain based on Sulci
What are brain atlases?
Maps of the brain
What are types of microanatomical maps?
Cytoarchitecture
Neurotransmitter receptors
Myelin Density
Cortical thickness
Which of the microanatomical maps are grey matter? which are white?
Myelin density is the only white matter. For motor control or sensation
What are Julich or Brodmann Atlases?
Maps based on cytoarchitecture
Brodmann: old map, 52 regions.
Julich: new map, shiny, modern brain scans
What is the connectivity type of dividing brain regions? Example?
Locate which areas coactivate or are connected by white matter.
Eg. Brainnetome - looks at structural/functional connectivity
What are brainspaces?
why do we need it?
Coordinate spaces of brain atlases.
Allows for reference for individual brains.
2 common brainspaces
1) MNI (a combination of MRIs)
2) Talairach (used a dissected brain)
What type of matter is made up of axons?
White matter
What is the simplest instance of neural representation?
Feature detectors
What model of memory do we use?
Atkinson and Shiffrin’s Modal Model of Memory
How does hierarchical processing relate to the modal model of memory?
Basic info –> Meaningful memory in the model
Meaning is added in each step of the model.
Sensation vs. Perception
Sensation is irreducible, perception is reducible.
Sensation uses feature detectors, perception uses high levels
Acquiring data vs. Making sense of it
3 key concepts in sensation (sensory ___)
Sensory receptors: sensory cells that activate to a stimulus
Sensory pathway: the nerves that carry info from sensory receptors to the brain.
Sensory processing: an area or multiple areas, where the brain interprets info from receptors into what we see as reality (Feature Detectors)
What is unique about our sensory receptors, pathways, and processing; related to our different senses.
Each of our senses have unique receptors, pathways, and grey matter for processing.
What’s transduction?
The point where sensory stimulus is translated into an electrical impulse
Receptors for Touch
Thermoreceptors: heat
Nociceptors: pain
Pruriceptors: itch
Mechanoreceptors: pressure/puncture
Proprioceptors: location (proprioception)
Where are sound receptors located?
Superior temporal gyrus
Where are olfactory cells (smell) located?
Medial temporal lobe
Where are taste cells located?
Insular cortex
Where are visual receptor cells located?
occipital lobe
Where are touch cells located?
Postcentral gyrus
What is homunculus?
The somatosensory cortex’s map of the body
The word for “body mapping”
Somatotopic organization
How is vision organized in the visual cortex?
Retinotopic organization
How is sound organized in the auditory cortex?
Tonotopic organization
Sensory memory (definition)
the capacity for brief memory of sensory information
capacity, duration, and errors of Sensory Memory
Capacity: all raw sensory info
Duration: seconds or less
Errors: decay
Types of Sperling Tests
What are Sperling’s tests?
What was the purpose of each?
Flash 3x4 letters on the screen for 0.2s. Sensory Memory.
1) Whole report test
- does sensory memory exist?
2) Partial report test
- what’s its capacity?
3) Delayed-Partial report test
- what’s its duration?
scientific words for the senses
touch = haptic
vision = iconic
taste = gustatory
smell = olfactory
auditory = echoic
Which sense is the most researched for sensory memory?
Iconic (Visual)
sensory receptors for vision
Rods and Cones
Attention (definition)
The state of focusing on one stimulus at the expense of others.
Selective Attention
Focusing on one task or stimulus.
Divided Attention
Focus switching between multiple stimuli
Distraction
Something outside of what you’re focusing on influences you doing the task
Attentional Capture
Rapid shift of attention due to some salient stimuli
“rapid shift of attention due to some salient stimuli”
attentional capture
“focus switching between multiple stimuli”
divided attention
2 Models of Attention
1) Boardbent’s Filter Model of Attention
2) Treisman’s Attenuation Model of Attention
What does the filter in Broadbent’s Model do?
Attends to raw, basic information, which then goes through to the detector.
What is an early-selection model in attention?
A model where meaning occurs after the filter. Filter happens before any meaning is applied.
Attention before meaning.
Which part of Broadbent’s Model of Attention assigns meaning?
Processing with meaning is detector’s job (after filter)
What’s some problem with Broadbent’s Filter Model of Attention?
There are some things that get processed even when not sent to detector. (Dichotic Listening Task)
What task was used to show the Broadbent model is incomplete?
How so?
Dichotic listening task
According to its model, all information unattended should be filtered out and not higher level processed. But in the task, they detected meaningful stimuli to some degree.
Where is attention located in the Modal Model of Memory?
After sensory memory; on the way to STM
What kind of model is the Treisman’s Attenuation Model of Attention, based on how it’s about processing linguistic info?
a language-focused model
What does the attenuator in Treisman’s model use to differentiate info?
Physical characteristics
Language
Meaning
What does the dictionary unit contain?
All words we know and their thresholds
What makes something have a high threshold or low threshold in the dictionary unit?
Does my name have a high or low threshold in the dictionary unit?
How easy it is to capture our attention. Affected by loudness, environment, etc.
Low threshold for our name. Very low activation required.
According to the Treisman model,
Where does attended info go to? What about unattened info?
Attended ALL goes to STM.
Most unattended ends at dictionary unit. Some go to STM if activates threshold.
What kind of selection model is the Treisman model? How so? (Use specific parts of model)
Both early and late selection.
We attend to info both after meaning (late-selection; Dictionary Unit) and raw data in absence of meaning (early-selection; Attenuator)
Amount of information an organism can process.
Processing capacity
Task difficulty (a factor of attention)
Perceptual load
2 States, what kind of waves in each state?
Alert vs. Resting
Alert: beta waves (15-30hz)
Resting: alpha waves (8-13hz)
What is the default mode network?
Brain regions that show above-average activity when we are mindless.
2 Hypotheses for Default Mode Network
1) Sentinel Hypothesis: we broadly monitor our environment and watch out for salient/important stimuli
2) Internal Mentation Hypothesis: we mindlessly try to tie past experiences to new stimuli
Short-term memory vs. Working Memory
STM: A system involved in storing small amounts of info for a brief period of time (the bucket)
Working Memory: A system for temporary storage and manipulation of information for complex tasks (the hands that uses info in bucket)
Capacity, Duration, and Error of STM
C: 5-9 pieces of info
D: 15-20sec
E: Decay
What task examined the duration of STM?
Brown-Peterson Task
What was the Brown-Peterson Task? What did it assess?
Given something to remember, then asked to count down from some number for a duration (distractor).
It looked to assess duration of STM
What task examined the capacity of STM?
Digit-Span Task
What was the Digit-Span Task? What did it assess?
Repeated numbers (or pieces of info) back to the examiner.
Looked to assess the capacity of STM.
What influences the storage of information other than the amount of info?
The density of the information (eg. shaded cubes are dense. they decrease the capacity)
2 Types of chunking
Category
Pattern (sequences count)
What model do we use for working memory?
Baddeley’s model.
Skill for keeping items in the phonological store from decaying
Articulatory Rehearsal Process
What’s the phonological store?
Bucket for holding auditory info
What makes words harder to remember in phonological store?
Similar sounds,
Production of unrelated words (articulatory suppression),
Longer words
Which part of Baddeley’s model does spatial reasoning task?
Visuo-Spatial Sketch Pad
Which part of Baddeley’s model deals with haptic information?
Visuo-Spatial Sketch Pad
Is Baddeley’s Model of WM a Psychological model or Neuroscience?
Psychological
Which task gives you letters and numbers, then tells you to order them?
Letter-Number Sequence Task
What’s the role of the Central Executive in Baddeley’s Model?
CE is attention controller; directs behaviors based on goals in working memory.
What is the rehearsal part of the modal model really?
Working memory ??
2 Neural Mechanism explanations of working memory
1) Activity-Dependent WM
- neurons continue after feature detectors stop responding to stimulus.
2) Activity-Silent WM
- Cluster of connections stay strong, so neurons can easily reactivate
What type of memory did H.M. have?
Short-term memory and some implicit memory
Capacity, Duration, and Errors of LTM
C: ‘infinite’
D: days to years (greater than STM)
E: Decay (NOT INTRUSION!)
Consolidation vs. Rehearsal
Consolidation makes info into LTM.
Rehearsal stays in STM.
Consolidation files away notes, Rehearsal is the taking of notes.
4 Factors that influence consolidation
1) Depth of Processing
- shallow vs. deep (processing)
- maintenance vs. elaborative (rehearsal)
2) Adaptiveness
- evolutionary (survival words more memorable)
3) Testing
- testing effect, effortful recall
4) Spacing
- sleep
What must be done to remember something from LTM?
What then happens?
Retrieval.
After, needs to reconsolidate
What is intrusion?
Does it happen in STM or LTM stage or both?
Adding new info or modifying memories.
Only happens in STM. Memories are safe from intrusion until they’re retrieved from LTM!
2 kinds of neural mechanisms of long term memory
1) Synaptic Consolidation
- changes at neuronal level
- long-term potentiation
2) Systems Consolidation
- changes in circuitry level
What is long-term potentiation?
Synaptic consolidation that solidifies memories into LTM.
Increases likelihood of neuron A to trigger neuron B.
What’s another way to say long-term potentiation?
Potentiation of synaptic efficacy.
Hebbian Plasticity
fire together, wire together
Standard Consolidation Theory
Hippocampus builds new cell connection, then disconnects.
Multiple Trace (Transformation) Theory
Only what type of memory
Hippocampus triggers are wakes more connections each time a memory is retreived. Only episodic
Multiple Trace (Transformation) Theory only applies to what type of memory?
Episodic memory
What does the hippocampus do over time to consolidate memory?
What does it form?
Reactivate neurons over time (hours or days; in sleep mostly).
Forms cell assembly; system-level changes in neuronal connection
What happens when retrieving 1 neuron in a cell assembly?
The rest of the neurons will reactivate
Standard vs. Multiple Trace Model
hippocampus pulls out in standard
hippocampus continues involvement in multiple trace
Hippocampus is involved by forming cell assemblies and making connections in what type of neural consolidation?
Systems consolidation
Hebbian plasticity is part of which type of neural consolidation?
Synaptic consolidation
Action potential ends at this neuron in the primary processing area. What neuron receivies this info?
Feature detectors
Where does transduction occur?
Sensory receptors
Which model is a language focused model?
Treismann Attenuation Model
What is neuro of WM?
1) activity-silent or
2) activity-dependent
WM.
Most anterior part of PFC
FPC (mFPC) if in longitudinal sulcus
Most inferior, flat part of PFC
OFC
What is ACC always involved in?
Cogflex
IC over internal processes
Interference control
Where is A of HPA located
Near kidney
What does HPA Axis release into bloodstream
Cortisol
IFG is mostly which areas
vlPFC,dlpfc
